


Mama said, "Idle Hands are Devil's Handywork"

by goodisrelative



Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-20
Updated: 2009-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-18 04:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodisrelative/pseuds/goodisrelative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ziva gets bored after being injured.  Desk Duty and her don't mix… kinda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mama said, "Idle Hands are Devil's Handywork"

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt isn't exactly what the story ended up. I'm pretty sure more Tony should have been included, but it just wasn't coming to me. Of course, since life has a way of interfering with my best laid plans of getting fic done. An injury I thought was serious is just a sprained ankle, but crazy, school and work and life. Anyway, I hope it's close enough to what was asked for to work. Enjoy!

_**Mama said, 'Idle hands are devil's handywork.' for[](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/profile)[ **rodlox**](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/)**_  
Title: Mama said, "Idle Hands are Devil's Handywork"  
Author: [](http://goodisrelative.livejournal.com/profile)[**goodisrelative**](http://goodisrelative.livejournal.com/)  
Written for: [](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/profile)[**rodlox**](http://rodlox.livejournal.com/)  
Prompt: Het, but preferably gen. Ziva David was bored. Very bored. This should have been a red flag to DiNozzo.  
Archive: Yes, if ask first.  
Genre: humour, general  
Pairings: None  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Word Count: 1,541  
Summary: Ziva gets bored after being injured. Desk Duty and her don't mix… kinda.

Author's Note: The prompt isn't exactly what the story ended up. I'm pretty sure more Tony should have been included, but it just wasn't coming to me. Of course, since life has a way of interfering with my best laid plans of getting fic done. An injury I thought was serious is just a sprained ankle, but crazy, school and work and life. Anyway, I hope it's close enough to what was asked for to work. Enjoy!  
Also? Title is a line from Leann Rimes' "Nothing Better to Do".

AN2: I can't be sure that the cubicle walls are actually dry wall and not fabric, but I seem to recall them being more substantial than the fabric cubicles I know. So artistic license!

  


* * *

Ziva was bored. She'd been shot _twice_ on a case – killed the idiot who had the nerve to shot her – and was still stuck on desk duty. It was _their_ fault for missing every single sign. Even Probie should have realized that leaving a Mossad assassin on her own in the office was a bad thing.

Tony noticed the slashes in the wall behind his desk. He had no idea what made them. It didn't cross his mind that it could be the woman sitting across from him.

Abby's Lab was not immune. Although it only took Abby minutes to realize what had been done, it had taken days to figure out whom.

It was Gibbs who put a stop to it… but that was three weeks into her boredom. And well after a lot of damage had been done.

*******

It started two days after she returned to work. Of course that was after she left the hospital a day early against doctor's order and stopped "bed" rest four days into her two weeks of it. She'd never been one to listen to doctors, from a very early age. And honestly, Ari had not helped the situation at all.

The first time she watched the team head to the elevator without her, it hadn't bothered her. Mostly, that was because she'd pulled the muscles in her shoulder – the one with the still healing bullet hole – as she turned to watch them and she was too busy biting back the curse to care about them leaving.

The first slash appeared in the wall behind Tony's desk the second time the team headed out on a new case without her. Two more joined that first one in quick succession. She retrieved her three throwing knives and placed them back in her drawers and could breathe again.

She was walking – slowly, and without the damn cane – to the ladies room when it dawned on her. If they were going to make her stay behind, she was going to sharpen her dull skills. No one was there to see the devious smile on her face or how her eyes lit up in mischief. It would have scared the hell out of DiNozzo, but he was 500 miles away.

She went back to her desk after and contemplated how best to sharpen her skills targeting each member of her team. Abby would have to be last… she rarely left the building with the team.

Probie was first a few days later… besides the knife holes in Tony's wall. Even with her injuries, most were still scared stiff of her. _Or was it scared silly?_ She shrugged, either worked for her.

The snap of latex gloves kept the team's area free of the other agents for the ten minutes she needed to search through every drawer and never leave a trace. Fear was a wonderful thing. The rubber band ball she took was a souvenir for her and the knife she left was her calling card for him and a source of protection for all of them if this place was ever infiltrated.

Tony was easy… his wall was her target board. She left a knife in the drawer that held Gibbs' awards and medals. His wall saw a lot of knives during the third case. No one seemed to understand that she wasn't McGee or Abby and couldn't pull information out of the machine on her desk like she could out of a still-barely breathing suspect.

Tony noticed the marks after that case. They'd been gone four days and she'd received forty-two phone calls during it. She'd hung up on twenty-seven of them – eighteen of them ended in curses that none of them understood but her and it had felt good. She'd replaced one phone. The elevator doors hadn't liked meeting it apparently, since it shattered.

The team was off for the weekend and then stayed at the office 3 days. Ziva was happier, but still bored sitting at her desk. Tony never caught her tracing the word "DiNozzo" with her eyes that currently decorated the wall behind his head. She was planning on adding "desk" underneath it over the next case she was forced to stay behind on.

Tony left her a stack of movies the morning they headed out. On top was a note. "Enough with the hang ups. Watch the classics! And stay out of my desk!!!"

She wandered Autopsy, scouting camera positions and working angles. She saw the holes still in their security. It was under Gibbs' signature that three new cameras, a new card reader and a few other security protocols were implemented. It was a good forgery, but a forgery nonetheless.

It was over a week this time and Tony still didn't notice that the slashes in the wall formed words. Ziva decided she was leaving three in the wall at the end of the next case.

She still wasn't sure what to do with Abby. She only had a week and a half left of forced desk duty. Over the last few weeks, she'd had Abby show her some tricks with editing voice samples. In exchange, Ziva had left a few of her more favorite recording devices in Abby's lab. She'd found one that Ziva knew of…. Ziva had watched on the camera that she'd placed that fed directly to her phone.

Abby's computer was far better for voice mixing. So Ziva let herself into the Lab one night on the weekend. Abby was spending the weekend with the nuns on a Habitat for Humanity trip that Gibbs knew better than to interrupt this time. When she was done, Ziva had mostly erased her presence. She knew Abby and McGee would find traces of her, but most would never. And Herbert had a lady friend that burped.

Ziva smirked on Monday when she watched Abby turn on machines to start her day and the lab tech jumped. Ziva knew that "I’d hate to start smacking you like I do DiNozzo" played from the Mass Spec. It was after "Don't call me sir." that Abby left the lab.

"Gibbs! I love you, but this is ridiculous! McGee! What the hell did you do to my lab?!" Abby exclaimed when she burst out of the elevator.

"Abs? What are you talking about?" Gibbs looked at her confused.

"Hey! I haven't even been in the area until this morning!" Tim piped in.

"All my equipment makes Gibbs comments!" She spun on a platform heel and headed back to the elevator, clearly expecting all to follow. "Let's go!!"

Ziva was silent, listening to Tim and Tony trading comments on what happened as everyone returned to their area. Gibbs was watching them all. Ziva didn't squirm, but it was the hardest thing she ever did, and knew she'd passed her own last test of her skills.

Gibbs found the paperwork on his desk then about the added security he'd authorized.

She silenced the room by letting three knives fly. The third thunk was the only sound and she had their attention. "I am off desk duty." She announced.

Gibbs had to smile. She'd made her point. He nodded and raised an eyebrow and looked at the paperwork in his hand.

"You had holes in security _still_. I closed them." Ziva shrugged. She looked over at Tony and he was staring at his wall.

"Hey, Tony! That's so cool! You're wall says 'DiNozzo's Desk'!! How'd you do that?" Abby noticed the marks he was touching and saw the bigger picture. "Wait. Ziva, _you_ did that with knives? That is SO COOL! You are so doing one of my walls!!"

*********

Later on, Tony looked back on the last three weeks. There had been numerous signs; he'd missed each and every one. After it was all said and done, he'd learned about each one and could piece together the disaster that had resulted. Next time, and he was sure there would be a next time, he'd pay more attention and avert the meltdown before critical mass was reached. Abby'd be proud of his science analogies, but he couldn't raise a smile yet, and that had nothing to do with the fact that his head was still ringing from the head slap from Gibbs.

He figured Kate was laughing at him, if she was watching over them. And then he did a double take, wondering what had brought her back to his mind. It wasn't often anymore that he thought of her. At least it wasn't painful; nowadays it was the good times and not her death he recalled. _This never would have happened if she was still on the team!_ After all, Ziva wouldn't be here for it to happen.

 _Hmmm, maybe I can write that best seller Probie hadn't yet!_ On second thought, he'd better not. That could result in a disaster worse than this… and this one was epic. He'd been ordered by the Director to patch his wall!

"How come I have to patch the wall she destroyed?" Tony whined.

"Because I have to sit here listening to you whine and that's a bigger punishment than some spackle!" Ziva retorted.

Gibbs just smiled. _It's good to have the whole team back._  



End file.
